On Site
TUESDAY MORNING
We took the boat at 7:40 to get to Evian to have the time to take our measures.
The sunrise and the protostructure.
We discovered the protostructure and last year's node.
The nodes and the visible foundations.
Our measuring tools : body part: Sophie's foot, object from surrounding: chestnut, verb: to pull.
The chestnut and Sophie's foot next to the visible foundation.
Our last measuring tool: time. We measured this by when one of us started hurting.
We dug a hole around the foundations to explore how it was made.
The before and after of the digging of the foundation, with our tool of measurement.
SUNDAY MORNING
After a small sprint to get to the boat at 9:25 (not at 9:45 like Anna H. remembered) we embarked on the journey to discover the effect the rainy weather had had on our on-site plaster cast.
The cast.
To move the plaster we had to make the choice of cutting off a corner.
Various pieces of plaster.
The full process of plastering the foundations can be summarised by five verbs: mixing, applying, drying, scraping and pulling.
Video of the stages of casting.
We were diversely affected by the process.
Sophie's hands and Anna H.'s legs.
The process had various effects on our senses
Anna H.: smell_wet grass, touch_smooth mud and dry dirt, taste_bitter dirt covered concrete, sight_raindrops on my camera, sound_the ping of raindrops on my umbrella.
Anna O.: smell_humidity, touch_tiring, sight_messy, sound_foggy, taste_adventure.
Sophie S.:smell_ fresh, touch_new, taste_raw, sight_dramatic , sound_drops.
We found the Great Mosque of Djenne that reminds us of the project.
The Great Mosque, Djenne, Mali, 1907
The whole process made us reflect upon measures as a project:
Are we digging up the past, the present or the future?
In Studio
CODEX AND CONCEPT
“When Lewis Carroll started to write, he sent his protagonist down to the rabbit-hole without any plan for what would happen thereafter. While writing he constantly added new ideas, “which seems to grow of themselves upon the original stock”.” -Codex Measures: Postface (p.65-66)
Future and past intertwining; the old sprouting the new, yet also the new redefining the old. Digging up the past, but also the present and the future. Casting the interstice from above; instead of looking at the present - the newly dug ground - we are looking at the past: cement touching wood. Nevertheless the space above the (w)hole is the future, measuring the end of the natural progression of filling it up. Unlike for Carroll, the end of the story is known, but the beginning is still to be discovered. A complex hybrid of a geometrically constructed polyhedron of the interstice in contrast with the organic can emerge. An onsite cast, which seems to “grow of [itself] upon the original stock” - in this case, onto a clean studio plaster cast, - yet it is the inverse: the rest of the plaster growing downward from the weathered material. Future and past interlaced, placed upon present.
PLASTER CASTING THE (W)HOLE
Making of the first plaster.
The result.
PLASTER CASTING THE HYBRID
I. Understanding the onsite plaster
Mapping the plaster.
The plaster, mapped (Axonometry by Anna H., Monge and Coupes by Sophie).
II. Securing the connection
The idea to support the organic plaster within the mold was to drill into it and add metal bars.
Brainstorming.
The hybrid mold.
III. Recasting
The process of the plaster drying was visible to the naked eye.
The hybrid.
LETTING TIME TAKE ITS TOLL (a scenario of destruction)
Time passes. It will take everything, eventually. It will act upon the Proto-Structure.
Rot, mould, insects and humidity infest wood, rust corrodes screws. The weight of the structure itself will become too heavy and start to break and fall, the pull of gravity being too strong. Animals will repossess the space, reappropriating the project. By the end of times it will be only splinters and decomposition. The only remaining part will be the underground ciment foundations, keeping its rock-like composition.
Maybe future archeologists will dig them up and make theories of our primitive society.
https://pxhere.com/en/photo/1153297
How does the future define our present and past?